Today, we received news that the McCain campaign will exploit a loophole in the public finance system that allows him to raise up to $28,500 from individual contributors to be used in television advertisements from now through the November.

This confirms what both debrazza (a commenter here) and I have already said-- the McCain campaign will be substantially funded by private sources even though he has promised to limit his campaign spending to public funds.

The loophole works like this: the RNC establishes what it calls an "independent expenditure committee." (Don't be fooled by the name, there's nothing independent about it.) This expenditure committee is a subsidiary of the GOP and McCain can directly raise money for it -- up to $28,500 per individual. (He can also raise money for the senatorial and congressional committees, but those funds can't be used on behalf of his campaign.)

The expenditure committee can spend an unlimited amount of money on ads either for McCain or against Obama -- and of course, every last dime of the money will be privately raised.

The only restriction is that the campaign ads cannot be coordinated with the McCain campaign. This, however, is a meaningless restriction -- since the standards for coordination are relatively high, there is no practical way to enforce it the restriction, and any attempts to do so would be unlikely to have any impact until after the campaign was over.

As I noted over the weekend, factoring in the RNC and DNC, McCain has already outraised Barack Obama in both April and May, and as of May 31 was sitting on nearly twice as much cash-on-hand as Barack.

I'll have more to say about this soon, but for now I'll just leave you with this: I think this is the most significant development for McCain so far this campaign. It absolutely proves that Barack Obama does not have an advantage over John McCain when it comes to fundraising for the general election -- despite the myth to the contrary.

For those on our side who have grown complacent, and are behaving as if Barack Obama has already won, this should be a wake up call. This campaign isn't nearly over. It's just beginning.

Related side note: My friend Justin Nelson wrote an op-ed today for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the problems with the public finance system -- it's good reading to understand why the system is broken.

Also on a housekeeping note: Some of you you may have noticed, I have removed the "Stuff I should have blogged" links. That's just temporary -- they will return soon.